


Injured Innocence

by RougueShadowWolf



Series: 15 Minutes [199]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe, Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Angry Stiles Stilinski, Good Alpha Peter Hale, Good Peter Hale, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Piercings, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stiles Stilinski's Name is Elizabeth, Stiles' nickname was once Lizzie, Tattooed Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Sheriff Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-19 08:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20653928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RougueShadowWolf/pseuds/RougueShadowWolf
Summary: Sheriff John Stilinski knew that he alone was to blame for the distance that had formed between him and his daughter. He’d made the choice to send his still grieving eight-year old to stay with Claudia’s sister, and it was he who failed to keep in contact with his daughter. It was all of his doing. Yet, he had hoped things would be better, that things would get better as his sixteen-year old daughter returned to him. A man needs hope, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, wandered, did you get lost? Shall I point you the way out of this forest of madness? 
> 
> Alright. So, here’s the thing, my loveliest of people, this round of 15Minute fic’s happened at the start of August, at a location with shitty internet connection and so I couldn’t upload my stories while at said location, and was trusted do it later. However, due to my brain being not at its best, I forgot all about posting my stories while also thinking I had done it (don’t ask me how that misfiring of my brain happened, it did).
> 
> If my friend ItAlmostWorked! hadn’t gone searching for a couple of the stories I wrote back in early August, then we would never have ended-up with me sharing these stories with you guys. So, any ill thoughts and energy you might feel about another round of my stories, send them in her direction. 
> 
> Now to everyone who doesn’t know what the series 15Minutes is, and those who know the gist of it please move straight to SLIGHT CHANGE. To those who aren’t familiar with this series, know that each fic is a small payment to a group of friends of mine (six cruel souls that would have the Gods of Olympus run for the Hills) and each of them gives me crumbs of wishes from which to form a story, and each story is written in 15Minutes, and once the minutes have ran to their bitter end, I’m forced to stop writing. Be thus prepared that there will be bad grammar, typos to the moon and back, just general bad writing and storytelling. If you can’t handle horrible writing and abrupt endings, please DO NOT torture yourself by reading anything from this series, since there are better authors to give attention to. Now, that that’s all been said, please move to SLIGHT CHANGE if you wish to risk your sanity and read my fic. 
> 
> SLIGHT CHANGE isn’t an increase in time, but we have been in negotiations on this matter. The change is the fact that there are now themes to follow, such as this round has the theme of Broken, still even with the theme, each of my wicked friends are still allowed to feed me ideas such as the ones ItAlmostWorked! gave me for her fic. Being a fan of female Stiles Stilinski she wished for that, but for Stiles to be this angry and bitter teenager who has made some terrible choice because her dad sent her away after her mom died and because he was turned by Peter into a werewolf he kept her away for one too many years, but then he has to take her back and deal with the fact the little girl he sent away is no more.   
Now, I shall wish you all well, and hope you were able to enjoy this fic even a tiny bit. Oh, and if you have tag-ideas for me, I will gladly take any help. Until next-time, be well and be good.

There’s a fear in him that is by nature undeniable, it sits solid and unmoving upon his whole person while he stands and waits for a change to come. The sense of dread and excitement battling away inside of him, never settling as he stands and waits with an uneasy heart. His stomach churning and turning while he anxiously checks his watch time and time again, each passing minute it seems sets his heart to beat even faster. His palms are sweating, and the need to run is great, but if he ran now it would do more harm than good.

This, this was all a special kind of torture, a peculiar sort of hell on earth he’d never experienced before.

It was but a single phone call that had planted the seed of unease and fear into his heart.

It is the not knowing that is making him ill with nerves, it is the whole not knowing how his daughter would fit into a life that wasn’t the same as the one his little girl had years ago left behind her.

A great many things have changed since that miserable day John sent his daughter away, sent her off to stay with his sister-in-law.

Years have passed, birthdays have come and gone, and Stiles and him had bother changed., John knew this and yet he struggled to accept the truth completely. 

Then there was the uneasy question whether or not it was safe for his daughter to return to Beacon Hills, and how safe she would be back with him.

Certainly, Beacon Hills had calmed down during the past few years, but that peace could easily break at any given moment, which was one of the reasons why he’d seen it safer to keep his daughter away. 

John could only hope that the return of his daughter wouldn’t be the beginning of something terrible. He could only hope that nothing sinister would try and use the return of his daughter against him and his mate, against their pack. Lizzie shouldn't have to become a pawn in some dangerous game just because of what he was, or for the person he'd begun to build a life with. 

Still, since Claudia’s sister had threatened to kick his child out on the streets, Beacon Hills and John were the last place his daughter had left to call home, and hopefully this move would provide the much needed distance and separation between his daughter and the old-man with a white hair that his once upon a time brother-in-law had seen his daughter with. John could only hope that this move would help his daughter see sense, and reveal the name of this man she’d been seen with.

No matter how afraid John was about what might transpire with the return of his wayward daughter, John couldn’t turn his back on his her again, not when there was a chance he could finally do something right when it came to his child; after neglecting, abandoning the little girl that had once been the apple of his eye for far too many years, and having no contact with his daughter for too many years, John owed Lizzie to do better. 

John owed his daughter and his late-wife to do and be better as a parent, something which his alpha had more than once told him during those rare moments when they'd argued about his daughter. 

It had never been John’s plan to allow things to get to the point where John no longer knew his daughter, and if someone had told him this was the way things would turnout as he waved goodbye to her all those years ago, well, he'd like to think he would've done something differently. 

Then thing is, when John had waved goodbye to his sobbing child all those years ago, he’d believed that his daughter would and could return to him within a month, if not sooner. He’d waved his daughter goodbye, the promise of their separation being short still on his lips while feeling determined to learn how to control the wolf in him. He’d worked damn hard on learning control, and he had learned to keep the monster he could turn into under control within a week of becoming a werewolf, but other dangers remained and so his daughter had remained in the care of her aunt for a month and then two.

There had always been something, some new danger to fight and so John had continued to postponing the return of his daughter, and soon months had turned into years, and before he knew it his eight-year old child was a sixteen-year old girl.

John knew that for nearly three-years now his mate and alpha had no longer bought John’s excuses of why his daughter couldn’t return, going as far as to calling him out on all of his reasons for why Lizzie was seemingly better of staying with her aunt.

Peter had spent two years making their town as safe as possible so that John could bring his daughter home, and when John claimed there wasn’t enough toom in their house Peter built them a bigger one with a room for Lizzie; and yet no matter what Peter did, the alliances he formed in a bid to make their town safe enough for John to bring his daughter home, sacrificing even stretches of land to solidify peace and protection. Peter had spent a lot of money on bettering the schools of Beacon Hills, donating new computers to Beacon Hills high school and renovating the crumbling libraries of their town; and still, John had refused to bring Lizzie home because in the end John had been too much of a coward to face his daughter, and Peter had begun to realize this long before John did. 

John was alone to blame for break in his relationship with his daughter, he and he alone was to blame for things had turned out between him and Lizzie.

Peter had bit him and turned him into a werewolf, and done all of that against John’s will, that much was true, but keeping Lizzie away for years and years that was completely on John.

Peter wasn’t to blame for every phone call from Lizzie that John missed, the Alpha also wasn’t to blame for all the times John forgot to call his daughter back. It wasn’t Peter’s fault that John had more than once forgotten Lizzie’s birthday back in the day when there was chaos and madness in Beacon Hills, Peter was often the reason why John did or would remember days later that his child had celebrated another birthday; it wasn’t really John who bought Lizzie her birthday or Christmas presents, it was more often Peter who did with some help from Laura and Cora.

Worst of all was the fact that every cancelled visit was John’s decision, not Peter’s.

It wasn’t Peter who told Lizzie that she couldn’t come home when she called John crying, begging to be allowed to come back home, it was all John. It was always John.

It had been two-years ago when the last pleading phone call came from his daughter, that phone call had started out with Lizzie begging to be allowed to come back home, she’d already been crying before promising him she’d do better, be better as long as she could come home; it had been two-years ago when John spoke to his daughter for the last-time, his last-words had been an apology attached with a firm no, the excuses for why she couldn’t come home all ready to fall from his lips, but before he could speak the familiar excuse his daughter spoke her last words to him.

`_Why don’t you just say you don’t want me back!_ ´ those words, yelled angrily by Lizzie to this day haunted him. He’d known long before the line went dead that Lizzie believed her statement to be true, he knew the moment she ended the phone call that she was not just being dramatic or trying to rile him up with her statement, for he had felt the weight of her words and heard the way the words had fallen from her like a truth spoken.

John had, of course, immediately dialled the familiar number, ready to try and mend the bridge he knew had been burned, but his daughter had refused to speak with him, and had continued to refuse to speak with him. It had been two-years now, and not once had John heard from his daughter, and only now did he realize just how terribly long time for it had been for a father not to speak to their own child.

Only now as he stood waiting, did the weight of all the years of separation feel real to him.

The realization that he, and he alone, was to blame for how things had turned out for Lizzie made him feel close to tears. He’d failed his daughter, pushed his once sweet natured child to rebel at a young age, a rebellion that had started years before the last phone call they’d shared. John was to blame for the way his daughter had for the past year gone all-out on making bad decisions, and there had only been so much Claudia’s sister could handle.

When Johanna had called him a few days ago, she’d unburdened her heart, not that she hadn’t always been quick to keep him informed whenever his daughter had done something she shouldn’t have; still, the way she’d told him of the last twists and turns of Lizzie, it was made in such a way that John could feel just how truly done Johanna was with Lizzie, he could hear the genuine disgust in her voice and the hatred she felt towards her own niece.

According to Johanna his daughter was in a relationship with a man who was old-enough to be Johanna’s father, and thus clearly old-enough to Lizzie’s grandfather. Her husband had caught a glimpse of this man that Lizzie seemed hellbent on protecting, and Johanna was convinced that this man was paying Lizzie for favours.

After the “I’m done with your whore of a daughter” phone call John couldn’t get his daughter out of Boston fast enough, and John wasn’t the only one since Peter was on it as soon as John had called him.

The sudden desperate _need _to have his daughter as fast and as far from Boston as possible came from learning that some perverted old-bastard was taking advantage of his daughter, and until John knew more about who this sick-bastard that had been gifting his kid with money and alcohol was, all he could do was try and get Lizzie to safety.

John was determined to learn the identity of this stranger, this man, who’d somehow slipped into Lizzie’s life without anyone noticing, and once John knew the identity of this old-perverted-pedo-fucker that twisted-sicko would experience the wrath of a father, a father who wasn’t all that human.

When it came to his own child, John wouldn’t risk a court of law failing Lizzie, there were far too many old republican judges ready to show unreasonable restraint and mercy to privileged white men, and from what Johanna had told him this old-fucker had enough money to spend on himself as well as his daughter.

John had seen too often how the court of justice failed the victims of various crimes, regardless of the mountain of evidence some people just got a slap on the wrists if even that. He’d seen rapist walk away with no prison, even with a mount of solid evidence proving their guilt, and he’d experienced the anger and devastation of the victim who’d done everything right, and he’d faced the question of, `_What was the point?_ ´ more than once from the broken-hearted victim who had bravely faced the one who’d caused them harm. John wouldn’t put his daughter through that, no, he would take the law in his own hands.

First, before he could hunt down the sick bastard who had somehow wormed his way into Lizzie’s life, John had to rebuild his relationship with his daughter, that was the only way for him to learn the identity of the man that Johanna’s husband had caught a glimpse of while driving past the corner this man in a fancy car had left Lizzie off at; a man who no doubt was the reason for the wads of cash Johanna’s husband had found in Lizzie’s bedroom that very night while he’d searched through all of her things, searching for something to reveal who this man was but finding only things that Lizzie shouldn’t have been able to afford.

_`Those eyes, they were the eyes of a predatory. ´_ John recalls Lizzie’s uncle saying, telling him everything he’d noticed about the man, it was a short conversation between one police officer to another.

Attempting to breathe out the anger that had begun to bloom within his now once more cracked heart, the small amount of details on this mysterious sicko that had got his dirty old hands on his daughter began to replay in his mind; sadly Johanna’s husband had no useful details to share with him other than the white or pale-grey hair and the fact that the man had been old, John didn’t even have the make or the model of the vehicle the man had been driving, and by God wasn’t that just bloody frustrating. 

John does his best to manage the wrath within him that was always sparked into life when the human predator wormed his way back into his thoughts, and at the thought of the sick-bastard a bitter anger directed at not only Johanna but her detail-blind husband too.

Of course, John knew and accepted a great deal of the blame for the fact that some perverted old-man had the chance to get his hands on Lizzie, after all, if John had only had been a far more solid figure in Lizzie’s life, then surely the old-man wouldn’t have had the balls or the chance to go after Lizzie; and above all else, if he’d had the courage to bring Lizzie home years ago, then she would’ve been home and where he and the pack could’ve kept an eye on her, and above all else she wouldn’t have been in the same city as the fucker who’d taken advantage of his daughter.

When John finally hears the tell-tale sound of a large vehicle coming down the road, and when the bus finally came into his line of sight, his anger was replaced once more with a horrible sense of anxiousness that made his heart beat like crazy. There was a small part of him that was excited to see his daughter again, but there was also another part that was afraid of it too. 

It was only when the bus began to slowdown, ready to pull to its stop, that John had the suddenly uneasy realization that the this Lizzie that would get off of the bus wouldn’t be the same kid he’d waved goodbye too years ago, she wouldn’t even be the eleven-year old girl in the picture that sat inside of John’s wallet; the last picture Johanna had sent him, and he was pretty sure that his daughter had changed a great deal since the last picture he had of her, and with how Cora and Laura hadn’t been able to find even a hint of Lizzie on any social media site he was left to just hoping he’d recognized his daughter. 

From what John did know about his kid was her age, and the colour of his eyes which were the spitting image of the eyes of his late-wife. John knew from Johanna that his daughter had gotten a couple of piercings a while back, and, even a couple of tattoos, none of which she’d had the permission to get and refused to reveal the name of the people who’d stuck needles into the skin of an underaged girl; John could admit now that he should’ve just brought his daughter home the first-time a furious Johanna called him about Lizzie’s piercing, but he’d failed to do a damn thing then and all the times that followed. 

The painful fact was, that John couldn’t even rely on his sense of smell to pick his kid out from all the other passengers inside the creaky and groaning vehicle, not when he hadn’t familiarized with the scent of his kid before sending her off with Johanna; sure, he’d had all of Lizzie’s things packed-up into storage when he’d put the house that both he and Lizzie had once called their home up for sale, things that his daughter had now outgrown and due to the unfortunate leaky roof of the storage facility most of her belongings had been ruined.

Once people began to exit the buss, some smiling and waving towards family or friends waiting for them, others rushing out with lowered heads and some startled by the sight of a Sheriff standing there outside the bus waiting, not knowing he was only there to pick-up his daughter. Eventually a girl, a teenager without bright blue eyes or blond hair exited the bus., and this kid screamed of someone who would’ve rather been anywhere else than in Beacon Hills; brown-eyes hard with anger, lips drawn thin, the kid reeked of every kind of negative emotion. A pair of dark rimmed glasses sat upon an upturn of a nose that had suffered abuse in the shape of a piercing, the septum piercing was somehow even more noticeable than the dimple or eyebrow piercings, not to mention the lip one. John felt almost light-headed at seeing just what sort of a pincushion his kid had grown-up to become, he was positive that Claudia had been rolling in her grave each time her little princess abused her own body in these drastic ways. This angry girl stepping out on the cracked pavement, was his Lizzie that much John could tell by just the eyes that glared at him much like every hunter that had looked upon him during the stormy years.

John doesn’t move towards his daughter, not for a little while, and she most certainly doesn’t make a move towards him, instead he takes in her changed appearance, finding her to be a great deal thinner than what seemed appropriate; no matter the layer of clothing his daughter was wearing John could tell she was a bit too thin, and this made him question just how well or rather unwell his daughter was, and before taking his first-step towards his daughter he makes a quick mental note to have his kid go through a check-up.

`Lizzie. ´ John says, his voice as welcoming and friendly as he could make it, trying his best to hide the uneasiness he feels under the unnerving gaze of his daughter, for some strange reason he feels like she can see straight into his soul.

Rolling her eyes, Lizzie turns around to grab her bag that the driver of the bus almost shoved almost violently against her chest, visibly knocking the air out of her lunges that had in the past caught every chest infection possible, Claudia had been convinced it was because of their daughter being born prematurely that was the reason for the weakness of Lizzie's lunges and perhaps she'd been right. 

`Lizzie, let me take that. ´ John says, closing the distance between him and his daughter while shooting a glare at the unhappy driver.

When the eyes of his daughter finally turned towards him all John sees for a moment is Claudia, not the healthy and happy one that had loved him and their daughter dearly, but rather the one that had seen their only child as something dangerous and at times believed firmly that he was cheating on her; on one of her really bad days Claudia had gone after him and Lizzie with a kitchen knife, making horrible claims that were disgusting and unfounded. 

Those eyes of Claudia, those hauntingly familiar eyes, they were still to a degree too painful to behold, leaving John to wonder how many more years would have to pass before Lizzie’s eyes didn’t spark a grief in him. 

`Sheriff. ´ is the simple greeting he gets from his daughter, this a cold and detached sort of hello carried forward by a voice that seemed too old for someone so young, all of it leaves John feeling like he’d gone through another round of waterboarding.

Faced now with his daughter, John can’t help but find his daughter to appear not so much physically older beyond her years, but rather her energy just felt off, as if she’d already lived centuries and grown wary of the world, wishing perhaps that it would all just stop.

John was left feeling incredibly uneasy, and rather rejected not only by the unfriendly hello but also by the way Lizzie just walked right on past him, heading towards the small parking lot, her shoulders tense and there was an air about her that even caused a group of young men around Derek’s age to part to give her way even though she could’ve easily walked around them.

`Where’s the car? ´ asks his daughter, there’s an edge to her voice that makes it painfully clear that this was the last place on earth his kid wanted to be in.

`This way. ´ John answers, doing his best to hide just how deeply her rejection cuts him, he understands why she angry at him, the distance between them now was his doing.

This was the price he paid for being a coward, and a failure as a father.

John hurries to catch-up with his daughter, not missing for a second the familiar beta that had soon exited the bus after Lizzie, a beta who now was following them out to the parking lot, one of Deucalion’s betas. Deucalion had clearly taken the job of sending Lizzie to home more seriously than John or Peter would’ve imagined, and John couldn’t help feel grateful over the fact that Deucalion had made arrangements to ensure Lizzie got to Beacon Hills safely.

As soon as John is at Lizzie’s side, she moves away, keeping him at an arms-length, a glare permanently cared into and around her eyes. Lizzie pauses briefly, only a few parking spots from where his car waits, or rather the car he drove around in for work stood, a displeased groan leaving her.

`Figures, ´he hears Lizzie mumble as he continues onwards, watching as the young beta that had followed his daughter to Beacon Hills get into a car that had been waiting for him, and with that one of Deucalion’s job was over.

`It’s not like I haven’t been driven around in one of these before. ´ John hears his kid mumbled as she starts to follow him over to the car that seemed to almost proudly inform everyone of his profession, a small smile pulls at his lips when he makes the mistake of thinking that Lizzie was thinking back to all the times she’d been a Little Deputy, and he even recalls how she’d reacted as a child when she realized not every child was dropped of at school or picked-up from school in a police car.

However, soon that smile and the memories of better times drops, because the next thing his kid says reminds him of just have badly things had become.

`All that’s missing are the handcuffs. ´ 


	2. Where We’ve Been Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ItAlmostWorked! wanted another chapter for this, one with Stiles POV, to see a hint of Stiles bitter anger. She also wanted a mention of John moving on with Peter and the boy living with them, and this boy is Isaac obviously. She also wanted a hint of magical or special Stiles in here too.

When she’d been younger, smaller, when she was but a child, Beacon Hills had always seemed to her so big, even a little bit frightening due to the dark forests that grew around the town. Beacon Hills had once been her home, and the only part of the world that had felt real to her, it had been a place where she had family and friends, but then her mother died and soon after that her father threw her away like a piece of garbage.

After years of being exiled from Beacon Hills, Stiles found this place she’d once called home and which looked unchanged, she felt very much like a stranger in an unfamiliar country that felt unwelcoming. Beacon Hills and the life she’d lived there, had turned into nothing but bittersweet memories, the sort she’d strived to pretend never knocked at the closed door of her mind every damn day.

Driving past the turn that would’ve taken them to the street where she’d learned how to ride her bike on, and where the house she still referred too as her home stood, causing the bitter and burning anger that had been festering inside of her for years began to claw at her insides like a rabid beast. 

Before taking a sip from her bottle of water, and sadly it was just water, Stiles decided to break the silence that had fallen between her and John since they’d got to the parking lot and she’d dumped her bags in the backseat of his cruiser.

`So, you sold the house. ´ Stiles says without warning, she kept her voice distant and cold even while the idea that there was someone else living in the house she still thought of as home.

The already tenseness in John’s shoulders increased, and he looked incredibly uncomfortable as he had seemed to be from the moment she’d stepped off of the bus, having this effect on John almost pleased her a little bit.

`I did. ´ John responds after a tense pause, and he glances briefly at her and Stiles makes sure to keep her face as blank as possible where she sits.

Stiles has spent years learning to hide her emotions, and for the past few-years she’d learned how to keep secrets life a professional, and she’d learned how to lie her way out of most situations, and she was full of deceit.

`All your things are in storage, Lizzie. ´ John goes on to say after an uneasy pause, and Stiles thinks briefly she hears a hint of an apology there.

Stiles’ dares to ventures a guess that John’s sorry for selling the house without telling her, without even giving her a chance to say goodbye to the only home she’d ever known.

When Stiles had learned about John selling the house, her home, and that he’d done it without telling her, she’d been so angry and then so sad, and then angry again before accepting the reality that the house had just meant as much to John Stilinski as she did.

Stiles might’ve moved on from all the feelings her younger-self had felt when Johanna had told her that John had sold the house, the only place she called home, but being back in Beacon Hills and hearing John so easily mention packing-up her things, putting them in storage to gather dust, it just sparked new life into the anger she’d buried deep.

`Yeah? ´ Stiles asks, not bothered to tell John off for using _that name_, she’ll drill it into his head eventually that being called Lizzie infuriated her to no end. Lizzie was no more, she was as gone, and all that was left of her was the flesh and bones of Stiles’ body. 

John nods then stiffly, there’s an uneasiness to be found around his eyes which are focused on the road ahead.

Stiles knows that John doesn’t have a clue that she can tell just how uncomfortable she makes him. John doesn’t know that she’s sharp enough to know, to tell, just how desperate he was for things to grow easier between them. She’s also well-aware of the game John was going to try and play with her, she was clever enough to know the games grown-ups thought they could play with her; John was going to try and regain her trust, wear her down and break her resolve to stay loyal to the people who mattered, he was going to try and turn her against people she trusted so that good old Sheriff Stilinski could pretend to seek her some imaginary justice.

Feeling a fresh degree of resentment spill into the already full-pool of said emotion, Stiles struggles to keep her voice steady and cold as goes on to say, `And what the hell, ´but eventually that bitter anger in her slips into her voice, `am I to do with a bunch of crap that belonged to some stupid naïve little shit? ´

John’s whole body jerks at the venomous words she’d spoken, and snaps his attention off of the road and to where she sits, eyes wide while wearing his surely by now patented “I disapprove of your actions, young lady” and voice sharp and aghast, John attempts to throw his weight around by saying, `Lizzie, language. ´

Stiles can’t help but roll her eyes at John, she finds it rather amusing and frustrating that John Stilinski thought he had any power at all to chastises her on her language. 

`Whatever. ´ is her less than respectful response, and there’s a part of her that does expect John’s reaction to mirror that of her uncle whenever she dared to disrespect him or his wife, but instead of her having to duck and cover John just glares at the road ahead as if it had personally offended him.

Sure, Stiles _does _remember that John _never _spanked her or raised his hand against her, and he never gave her any hardcore punishments before he’d checked himself out of Motel Parenthood; still, she waits anxiously for several minutes for him to reach out and to do _something_, her entire body ready for it, her arms and hands are fully prepared to cover her face in seconds.

Stiles learned early on while living with her aunt and uncle that the risk of getting hit when she wasn’t expecting it, she’d been quick to learn that she could find herself dazed and disoriented at any given minute while the back of her head and at times her forehead throbbed with a seemingly unforgiving pain, her uncle hadn’t seen it fit to teach her how to drive or to play ball, but the man sure has hell did teach her to be on her toes.

Breathing out the uneasy breath she’d been holding, Stiles decides to ask the all-important question of, `So, where am I going? ´

`What? ´John asks, glancing over at her briefly, a genuinely perplexed look upon his face.

Barely stifling the second eye-roll of this car ride and swallowing down the huff of annoyance that craved to escape her, Stiles answers John’s question, all the while wondering how John had managed to hold on to being the Sheriff for this long since he clearly wasn’t all that sharp.

`I was just wondering where, ´ her words falling in a pace that is deliberately slow, as if she was talking again to some stupid detective that underestimated her intelligence, `or rather, who are you dumping me on? ´

John nearly misses the red-light, and so the stop is rather a harsh one.

Seeing John so rattled by her question almost brings a smirk upon her lips.

`What? ´ John questions, his pale eyes wide, the colour of his skin unusually pale, `I’d never… how can you think I’d…

`Oh cut the crap, Sheriff. ´ Stiles cuts the man off, her voice unfriendly and harsh which suites her well, `You dumped me at the McCall’s before and after my mom died, ´ here John shakes his head ever so slightly, but Stiles isn’t having any of it and tells him as much.

`You did! I can count on my fingers all the days you didn’t dump me off at the McCall’s during those years, and there will still be a couple of fingers free. ´ 

Lizzie had kept a detailed, colour coordinated record of all the days she’d spent with her dad after her mom became too sick to stay at home, too sick to be trusted. Lizzie had documented carefully all the times she’d spent at the McCall house and yes, even at the station during those sad and miserable years. Lizzie had even marked down the hours she spent in the care of neighbours or babysitters. She’d continued to keep track of all the days her father spent with after the death of her mother, going as far as to also write down the hours her father had been sober during those days.

Stiles knew now that keeping track of everything had been a small way of Lizzie to find some control in an uncontrollable situation, and once Lizzie was shipped off to aunt Johanna, things to write down and document grew, some might say Lizzie went a little bit crazy with the whole writing down everything that was going on since she began to write down exactly how long for example a phone call was with her father; Lizzie wrote down every cancelled visit and reasons behind them like keeping track of everything would make sense of it all, but she’d also scribbled down every whispered conversation between her aunt and uncle when the topic was her father or Lizzie herself. Of course, once her uncle and aunt realized that her father wasn’t there for her, Lizzie began to document each bruise and level of pain she was after each round of punishments.

These diaries of wrongs were burned once Johanna had found them, this was back in the day before Lizzie was completely lost and replaced by a far more devious Stiles. Her aunt had been livid, questioning the sanity of her niece none too kindly, and after that incident Johanna began to drag her to counselling which didn’t really help much since Lizzie wasn’t really allowed to say much since the woman was the sister of her uncle; still, the medication did help numb her out just enough for Lizzie to slip away just enough for Stiles to be born, and Stiles wasn’t dumb enough to document negative things and leave them out for everyone to read, and she had an angry and rebellious heart. 

`Lizzie. ´ John says then, voice a little bit broken but Stiles doesn’t feel any sympathy towards John, he’d dumped her back when all she wanted was to stay close to the parent she had left, even if said parent rarely had time for her and when he did was often too deep in the bottle to be of much comfort to her; still, John might’ve yelled at her while drunk, but he never hit her.

`And once the McCall’s had enough of taking care of a kid that wasn’t theirs, ´ and by Gods she was honestly surprised the McCall hadn’t put a stop on John dumping her at their doorstep sooner, since their marriage had begun to clearly suffer because of her constant presence, ` you up and dumped me on Johanna. ´

Shaking his head, his pale eyes wet but even if John would start crying it wouldn’t make a difference to how she felt. Why should she feel any sympathy towards a man who hadn’t cared about her, had been deaf and uncaring when she’d cried and begged him to let her come home, to come and get her? Why should she give a flying fuck about John Stilinski?

`You dumping me on people, that’s what you do, Sheriff. So, excuse me for asking to know who exactly it is you are going to dump me on. ´ Stiles continues without mercy, ignoring the look of hurt that has appeared on the face of the man she’d expected would’ve aged more during their time of separation, after all her aunt and uncle had aged a lot during the years she’d been living with them, but John appeared pretty much the same as he did on the day she left Beacon Hills; well, no, she thinks he looks healthier, stronger, like life had been treating him well while she wasn’t around to bother him.

Sadness and regret seemed to cloud John’s features then, and it seems like John struggles to find his voice, and once he does speak, he sounds very much like Stiles had just drained a great chunk of his energy and hope.

`Lizzie, ´ the man says, voice oh so low and miserable, `Lizzie, I did what I thought was best for you. ´ and that answer does nothing but fuel the bitter anger inside of Stiles, and she doesn’t hold back when years of resentment drips into her voice.

`Sure you did. ´

Stiles really wishes she had at least one of her smart phones with her, at least then she could’ve now moved to ignore John by listening to her music, but she’d lost everything because of stupid paranoid and angry people who just wanted her to rat on the only people she trusted, the only people who gave a damn about her.

`Sure. You. Did. ´ she repeats coldly while turning her attention away from John, choosing to glare out the at the world outside the car coming to another stop at another set of traffic-lights, the last ones.

`Lizzie, ´ John says then as he waits for another light to change from red to green, `What I did, I did it for you. ´

Although Stiles has a feeling that John genuinely believes what he’s saying, it doesn’t change a goddamn thing, it doesn’t change the fact that he’d left her with her aunt and uncle without even once coming to check on her.

`You keep telling yourself that, Sheriff. ´ Stiles responds, wishing she would’ve managed to make a run for it before she was shipped away to Beacon Hills, but she’d felt like someone was following her from the moment she left Johanna’s house; she wasn’t sure what to think about it, whether or not to believe these people she imagined tracking her every move were even real, and if they were real she hadn’t known if they were the sort of people she could’ve turned too, and so she hadn’t dared to make a move to make sure they were real or to even make a quick phone call to inform Gerard or Kate what was going on.

Stiles might’ve grown a little bit paranoid after getting caught by Johanna’s asshole husband, then again, Stiles had been long before that paranoid about a lot of things. There were days when she’d even thought she was going crazy, losing her mind, but Kate and Gerard always knew how to calm her down.

A heavy sigh leaves John then, appearing disheartened while continuing on with the long drive to somewhere, probably the insane asylum since that’s what her aunt and uncle felt should be done with her. 

`To answer your question, ´ John says after long, tense, uncomfortable silence, one which had dragged on once John accepted that he could say anything that could or would change her mind.

`You are staying with me and Peter, and of course Isaac too. I’m not dumping you on anyone, Lizzie. ´ That’s a surprise, and Stiles can’t help but turn her head and look at the man she’d once called her dad, waiting to see any signs of him pulling her leg, then moving to beat some sense into her heard for even thinking he’d let her near his partner, and the boy Peter and John had been raising for the past five-years. 

`What? ´

A small smile pulls at John’s lips, the amused and self-satisfied hint of a look didn’t sit well with her. Stiles doesn’t like seeing John smile, be it even a little bit, and so she quickly bites back viciously.

`So, you’ll finally allowing me near your dear-Peter. ´ Stiles says then, the bitter loathing she’s felt towards John and the family he’d built while she was stuck with Johanna and her dick of a husband, coming forth in her voice which causes John to immediately drop his smile.

`Have you given dear-Isaac the heads-up that you’ve got a kid? Because you sure as hell never told me about dear little innocent Isaac. ´ Stiles continues angrily, and again John goes pale, and she gets a kick out of it.

`Yeah. You never actually told me about Isaac, ´ Stiles continues, the hot bitter anger in her gut making her feel like it was burning a hole through her stomach, she feels close to losing it and so she digs her fingernails into the palms of her hands; pain always helped to calm her down and settle her temperament, and usually quiet down her mind.

`Yeah, I learned about him because_ certain_ adults were freaking out about two faggots raising a kid. ´ the brutal way John hit the breaks of the car was enough to cause her let out a surprised cry, the way her seatbelt presses brutally against her bruises and then yanks her back hard into the seat, causes a wave of pain spread from various parts of her body.

`Fuck. What the fuck is wrong with you?! ´ she shrieks, not noticing how tense and angry John appeared to be, at least she doesn’t until he speaks to her in this unfamiliar way that might make her question who this man sitting next to her was. 

`I get it, you’re angry with me. I can even respect that. ´ John starts, voice low and angry, his eyes closed and he looks positively livid, and suddenly Stiles feels the cold chill of fear spread through her. She doesn’t feel as confident about John not hitting her as she might’ve been.

`I can deal with that, and a whole lot more, because I get it, I do. You’re angry with me, and that’s fine because that’s the least I deserve. ´ John continues, his hands turning white as he squeezes hard the steering-wheel, and Stiles would’ve probably said something like no shit Sherlock here at this point if she didn’t see exactly how far she’d pushed the Sheriff.

`But _I will not_, ´ John positively growls as he turns his furious attention towards her, and Stiles shrinks back immediately because the level of anger that radiated from the Sheriff was the sort Stiles had learned was dangerous, and she’s frightened into a state of almost obedient silence.

`I will _not_, ´ the Sheriff repeats, and suddenly one of his hands is off of the steering wheel, and he’s shaking a finger aggressively in her face, `I will not tolerate any, any homophobic language from you, none. ´ 

Stiles entire focus in on the hand that with one move of a finger and turn of the wrist turn into a fist, she doesn’t even dare to breathe now, her own hands ready to try and defend her face and head from possible blows. Four fingers unclenching would easily turn into a hand ready to grab her painfully by the neck or throat, or grab her by her hair before slamming her head against a solid surface, and so she watches the hand that isn’t on the steering wheel while also acutely aware of what the other hand was doing.

She really didn’t want another concussion so soon after her previous one, and she was pretty much worried about what each past concussion was doing to the future-well-being of her brain.

Stiles only just manages to nod her head at the right moment, and although she’d like to defend herself by saying she was just parroting Johanna, but that would be talking back, and talking back meant she would either get a slap across the face or a punch in the face, and that was all before her actual punishment; and now that Stiles was thinking about punishments since she doesn’t know what would be the punishments John would be handing out, she’d spent years knowing what to expect from her aunt and uncle, and now she was stuck with people she didn’t know what to expect from, and that was terrifying. 

`Lizzie? ´ Stiles watches as the raised hand gets lowered down, but she still can’t breathe, the fear of making any sound at all, however small, would draw unwanted attention towards her.

`Lizzie? Lizzie, I need you to breathe. You need to breathe, Lizzie. ´ Stiles hears the man say, although his voice sounds distant and with how she feels, it’s pretty obvious to her that she was losing control of herself, allowing one of the many flaws was sending her none-too-kindly into another panic attack.

`Lizzie, sweetheart, you need to breathe. ´ the voice tells her, voice loud and demanding, which doesn’t help.

Of course, Stiles knows she has to breathe, she knows she _needs_ to breathe since she’s like most creatures flawed in her construction thus making to continuation of breathing vital, but knowing she should be breathing was a whole other thing from actually managing to do it when a major glitch in her system made it a struggle, and because it was a struggle it increased her distressed nerve-endings to just go bat-shit crazy.

Usually when she began to feel a panic attack clawing its way forth, she’d be on her phone, calling her support system or sending them a message if she was in class, and she’d get the help she needed and the horrible monster inside her head would be pushed back into its dark cave; but her phones were gone, and even if she’d had them on her, Stiles wouldn’t have risked calling them now.

The realisation of just how alone she was struck her suddenly hard, and any hopes of breathing slipped through her fingers.

`Come on, Lizzie, breathe with me. ´ the moment John raises his hand, the moment that had starts towards her face, Stiles flinches back violently enough that she hits the side of the door and smacks the back of her head against something hard and unyielding, usually pain would help clear some of the panicked haze that had swooped in around her but not to night.

Stiles the moment to unbuckle the seatbelt when John is startled back by her reaction, his wide and alarmed eyes wide and bewildered, as soon as the constrictive hold of the seatbelt releases its hold on her Stiles is grabbing the small handle and pulls at it, feeling the tightness all around her chest and lunges ease the moment the car door opens.

`Lizzie, ´ she hears someone says from behind her, and then she feels a heavy hand on her shoulder and the unforgiving wave of fight or flight washes over, she turns just enough to ensure her left elbow lands a sharp blow in the chin of the man leaning towards her, and then to buy her more time she lands hard on the mans nose, she hears the bones of the nose break and the pained and shocked cry.

Although her elbow hurts like hell, as does her fist, the panic continues to claw at her as she ungracefully tumbles out of the car, landing on the side of the road hard enough to cause a few scrapes and bruises on her hands and knees, still she gets-up quickly enough and starts towards the trees.

With every step she takes, a little bit more air begins to move in and out of her lunges, and as she touches one tree after another the fear clawing at her drains away, because strangely enough she feels safe amongst the trees. She’s no longer afraid of the forest, not that she really knows why she’d been afraid of it before, maybe it was a fear planted in her by her parents?

Stiles comes to stop by an old and dying tree, resting her stinging hands against the trunk of the tree, and resting her forehead against the dry and lifeless tree, focusing on her breathing while listening to John chasing after her.

_He doesn’t sound angry_, Stiles thinks once she feels more like herself again, although she does still feel off in a peculiar way, like the times she’d had a pleasant high.

_He’s afraid, worried for you_, a peculiar sort of whisper inside her head tells her then, and it reminds her of the voice of her imaginary friend as a child, it hadn’t had a shape since her imagination had clearly been lacking enough for her not to create a body for the imaginary voice; she’s both happy to hear it again, it’s been years, the last-time she’d heard it whisper was when she left Beacon Hills. The voice had screamed and cried for her not to go, it chased after her until there were more houses than trees around. She’d missed her friend, and the stories it had told her, and the way it had always promised her she was special and one day she would do great things, wonderful things.

_I’ve missed you too, little spark_, the voice whispers, just as John comes crashing through the trees.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there, hello there, it’s me and a few details I’d like to share about this fic. 
> 
> So, first-of-all, Stiles has not been having sexual relations with any old-man, but of course no one believes her. She’s an angry kid, who has admittedly made mistakes, but there’s been no sex with an old-man. She has however gotten close to a man who is indeed old-enough to be her grandfather, and he has been happily giving her money and nice things which she’s been more than glad to take, the attention this adult and his daughter have given her is what she’s been needing for years. Sadly, Stiles doesn’t know that she’s pretty much being groomed and used by these two people. 
> 
> Now, John sent Stiles away because he was afraid for her safety, not just because of his own lack of control but also because he wasn’t sure he could trust Peter not to turn Stiles or hurt her, the plan was never not to have Stiles come home when he sent her away, but with hunters to deal with and then one disaster after another, there just hadn’t felt like a safe time to him; and then Stiles just didn’t want to have anything to do with him, and John was at a loss for what to do (could’ve of course been a man and gone to see his daughter, and made more an attempt to build bridges, but hey, I’m not a parent so what the heck do I know). 
> 
> Oh, and the rape/non-con tag is for Peter turning John against his will after the Hale Fire when he was a bit nuts in the old bowl of noodles, just wanted to play safe with the tag thing today. 
> 
> Got to stop it here, need to move on to the next story. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and may you have a wonderful day!


End file.
